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The Things of the Parliament

An ANT-inspired Reading of Representative Democracy

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Soziologie der Parlamente

Part of the book series: Politische Soziologie ((POLSOZ))

Zusammenfassung

Over the past few decades, Actor-Network Theory (ANT) has become a popular approach in the social sciences. Instead of providing a general overview, this chapter shows how ANT might be put to use when it comes to the empirical study of democratic politics. More precisely, drawing on historical and ethnographic research conducted on the Hungarian Parliament between 2006 and 2010, the chapter demonstrates how an ANT-inspired reading of representative democracy may open up new spaces of political engagement within a seemingly coherent political reality. Following ANT’s early insights, the first section examines how paying close attention to the materiality of parliamentary politics may help us better understand this political reality as a historically specific development. The second section argues that this political reality consists of multiple ‘modes of doing’, which suggest that there is politics going on not only within, but also between different organising logics associated with representative democracy. Finally, the third section invokes the concept of performativity in order to explore in how we, as researcher-citizens, are implicated in this political reality, and how we may interfere with it.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Goethe-Universität Frankfurt/M., Frankfurt, Deutschland

    Endre Dányi

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  1. Endre Dányi
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Correspondence to Endre Dányi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universität Würzburg, Würzburg, Bayern, Germany

    Jenni Brichzin

  2. Universität Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Damien Krichewsky

  3. Universität Bielefeld , Bielefeld, Germany

    Leopold Ringel

  4. Institut für Soziologie, Goethe-Univ Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt, Hessen, Germany

    Jan Schank

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Dányi, E. (2018). The Things of the Parliament. In: Brichzin, J., Krichewsky, D., Ringel, L., Schank, J. (eds) Soziologie der Parlamente. Politische Soziologie. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-19945-6_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-19945-6_10

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  • Publisher Name: Springer VS, Wiesbaden

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-658-19944-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-658-19945-6

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